US RevPAR Declines 78% Last Week, Declines Could be Stabilizing but Easter Shift

All Top 25 markets saw RevPAR decline >77%, with Atlanta, Houston and New York the most moderate declines. The hotel re-pricing company TripBAM recently highlighted to us that only 34% of the hotels on its global system are closed vs. 40% last week.

US RevPAR Declines 82% Last Week, Declines Stabilizing

US RevPAR trends. Total US RevPAR fell 82% for the week of March 29 - April 4. This follows growth of 0.9% in 2019,2.2% in Jan, 1.7% in Feb, but continues March declines as Covid-19 impacts the industry.

Hotels Turn to Layoffs, Room Rate Cuts as Business Staggers

New corporate bookings at U.S. hotels dropped by about 20% over the past few days, according to Tripbam Inc., a firm that tracks and books corporate hotel rates. The outlook is expected to deteriorate further, especially with the U.S. banning travel from continental Europe for 30 days.

Tripbam adds LRA and sourcing features

Hotel shopping, benchmarking and analytics provider Tripbam has added two new features to its solution offering to allow corporates to monitor last room availability (LRA) performance and add dynamic sourcing to their programme.

Steve Reynolds on Finding The Right Mix Of Hotel Discounts

Tripbam CEO Steve Reynolds constantly examines hotel discounts on corporate rates. To help buyers assess the best negotiating approach, he explains the differences between corporate rate types and suggests a few targets to shoot for.

Friday, November 1, 2019

The Price is Right? Once distrusted by travel buyers, dynamic hotel rates are finally getting hot

Steve Reynolds, CEO of Tripbam, notes every client he works with is interested in dynamic pricing because they believe it's a potential solution to avoid the annual super-expensive, time-consuming RFP process.

ACTE summit: Negotiated rates divide opinion

A panel of industry experts seemed to disagree on the efficacy of negotiated hotel rates during the opening plenary session at the ACTE Global Summit in Amsterdam. Peter Grover, MD, EMEA at Tripbam, added that bringing in content from multiple sources gives corporates the chance to shop around and find lower prices...

Unique Stay

The rise of independent hotels and soft brands reflect an increasing desire among travelers for lifestyle stays – properties that offer distinctive design and an “unscripted” approach to service. For travel managers these new options can offer greater cost savings. And for travelers, staying at an independent hotel or soft brand may offer a more unique, and local, experience.

Travel Management Technology Adoption

Among findings, online booking tools, expense reporting systems, mobile travel applications and traveler tracking systems form the core of travel management tech, each adopted by at least two-thirds of respondents. Airfare and hotel rate reshopping as well as guest-booking technology are emergent tech options, adopted by at least one-third but less than two-thirds of respondents.

Google price-matching: Are hotel bookings next?

It's no secret that hotel rates change often. Consumers have gotten used to dynamic pricing, leading to the popularity of price-monitoring apps like Hopper and metasearch platforms like Google. This creates an arbitrage opportunity for consumers (and travel managers via startups like TripBAM)...

The Global Business Travel Association—the voice of the business travel industry held its 5th Annual Media Day on August 4, 2019 at GBTA Convention 2019 in Chicago. Media Day features breaking news from prominent travel companies. This year showcased 29 announcements.

BTN Names Suzanne Boyan Travel Manager of the Year

Last night at the historic Blackstone Hotel, part of the Autograph Collection, BTN recognized ZS Associates' travel operations coordinator Suzanne Boyan as the 2019 Travel Manager of the Year. BTN editor-in-chief Elizabeth West announced the winner, chosen by BTN editors from nominations submitted by the industry.

5 ways to save money on top hotels

Enter TripBAM, a free service which helps you monitor hotel prices and alert you when they drop. Suppose I've got a refundable booking at the Westin Bangkok. I can ask TripBAM to monitor prices at the hotel. TripBAM will watch the property, and send an alert when prices drop. It can even automatically cancel and rebook the stay on my behalf.

Travel and Transport Partners With TRIPBAM

Travel and Transport, a TMC, and TripBAM have partnered to provide global hotel re-shopping and analytics for business travel programs. The agreement encompasses Travel and Transport’s wholly-owned locations in the US, UK, France, Germany and Switzerland.

Tripbam Automation Will Relentlessly Bug Hotels Violating Deals

One of the most frustrating aspects of hotel relationships for corporations is that the better the negotiated rate, the more often it shows as sold out. Hotels tinker with room inventories and in the process sometimes violate contracts stipulating last-room availability. Tripbam is testing a program that alerts hotels when they fail to live up to these commitments.

TRIPBAM today reported strong growth and savings for clients in the first few months of 2019. The company signed four additional travel management company (TMC) resellers, bringing the total number of global TMC agreements for the company to more than two dozen.

Hotel Program Management Tools

Hotel sourcing and management is one of the most complex processes travel buyers must wrap their heads around, especially for global programs using thousands of properties in dozens, if not hundreds, of countries. The sourcing aspect traditionally has been a grueling annual RFP process that lasts, on average, four to six months.

TRIPBAM Expands Global Service Offerings, EMEA Presence with New Hires

TRIPBAM, the hotel shopping, benchmarking and analytics provider, has named Jeff Hillenmayer as executive vice president of account management and Brett Rance as account director Europe/Middle East/Africa.

How green is your hotel?

Given the growing importance and visibility of sustainability issues, is there anything that a travel buyer can do to raise the profile within their organisation? A lot of it – unsurprisingly – comes down to money, says David Mollov of hotel specialists TripBAM.

Corporates Held The Line On 2019 Hotel Rates, Tripbam Clients Did Better

With another annual contracting season mostly in the rear view, the three largest travel management companies reported modest increases in their clients’ negotiated corporate hotel rates for 2019. At properties in North America, the average contracted rate is up around 1 percent from 2018. Tripbam CEO Steve Reynolds said his clients secured corporate rates that averaged 4 percent lower than last year. He thinks the decrease should have been more.

Business Travel Show 2019: Ones to watch

Tripbam Hotel Intelligence is a new, first-of-its-kind solution designed with extensive input from Tripbam clients. It is the only tool in the market that allows travel managers in real time to accurately grade hotel, brand and chain performance regarding true discounts received and LRA (Last Room Availability). Tripbam will be providing a full demo at the stand.

Business Travel Awards 2019: Winners revealed

Industry colleagues gathered at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane last night to celebrate those recognised at the 2019 Business Travel Awards. The exclusive ceremony began with a champagne reception followed by a three-course gala dinner and entertainment.

TRIPBAM Announces New Share Shift Capability

TRIPBAM announces a new capability to enable travel managers to deliver the share that preferred hotel vendors deserve. Using TRIPBAM's patented clustering technology, traveler managers can now shift share to highly preferred hotels and way from non-preferred suppliers resulting in improved compliance and deeper discounts.

Is Now the Time for Dynamic Hotel Discounts?

Corporate travel veteran, Steve Reynolds, is a hotel rate wonk and you're the beneficiary. Read on as the TRIPBAM founder dissects the arguments surrounding dynamic versus fixed rates, just as many corporate hotel programs are in the thick of securing preferred pricing for next year.

TRIPBAM Launches Hotel Program Management Tool

Hotel rate shopping and analytics provider TRIPBAM has launched a new tool that, among other capabilities, allows travel managers to evaluate how accurately hotels, brands and chains apply rate discounts and last room availability.

EY Overhauls Hotel Procurement

Globally, professional services and Big Four auditing firm EY employs 255,000 people and operates out of 700 offices across more than 150 countries. As Hutchings put it, there's no major city in the world that EY isn't in.

TRIPBAM - Skift 2018 Most Innovative

Corporate travel is extremely resistant to innovation because a select handful of gatekeepers make it difficult for new entrants to gain access to the content and data that is needed. These players are driving the industry forward by fixing how travelers book and experience business travel.

TRIPBAM GDPR and PII Ready

Recently, our team at TRIPBAM has been hard at work to make sure we're prepared well in advance of the May 25th General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance deadline. We've always taken data privacy and security seriously, and are proud to announce that we are GDPR ready and we continue to be EU-US Privacy Shield compliant.

BTD Managing Out of Policy Bookings

BTD becomes the first UK TMC to implement the Traxo CONNECT platform which includes a data parsing tool that extracts details from booking confirmation emails. The tool then passes the relevant information to TRIPBAM in order to search for savings opportunities by rebooking at the same or preferred hotels nearby.

CORPORATE TRAVEL GOT EVEN MORE COMPLICATED IN 2017

Steve Reynolds, CEO of hotel rate tracking tool TRIPBAM, said his company’s biggest innovations this year are a new analytics package with tripBAM’s proprietary lowest qualified rates and a new automated rebooking solution.

TRIPBAM to Capture Direct Hotel Bookings

TRIPBAM is growing fast. What started as a rate-checking and re-shopping service now also can serve as a tool for hotel rate negotiations. Its analytics dashboard has evolved into a hotel program management system. Now, to better service client needs, TRIPBAM is working to bring in data on bookings made directly with hotels.

Morgan Stanley 15th Annual Corporate Hotel Survey

Our 15th annual Global Hotel Corporate Travel Survey suggests slightly stronger support for RevPAR growth in 2018 in nearly all regions, both on room rate and volume, with particular inflection in Europe and China. We set new country RevPAR forecasts. Our top picks are Accor, Marriott, Hilton. 17% of corporations use TRIPBAM as part of their hotel procurement program.

IHG Says 'Me-Too' To Cancellation Penalties

In June, Marriott International announced a new 48-hour cancellation policy, with a one-night payment penalty if you didn’t cancel before then. In July, Hilton followed with their own 48-hour (and in some cases 72-hour) cancellation. Now IHG, which includes Intercontinental, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Kimpton, has switched to a 24-hour cancellation policy.

Will Annual Hotel RFPs Ever End?

Ask parties on both sides of the negotiating table what they think about the annual hotel RFP season, and more often than not, they'll say it's an inefficient, outdated process. But that doesn't mean everyone's ready to change it.

Procurement strategies & dynamic pricing

Dynamic pricing and new fare-tracking tools are creating a complex, fast-moving environment for travel procurement. Is the growth of dynamic pricing by suppliers, combined with the use of price-tracking technology, set to sweep away the traditional negotiated corporate deal?

The Rate Fluctuation Game

Not too long ago, I had a client tell me about a consistent problem that was coming up among her travelers. Everyone and their brother, it seems, was emailing her with lower rates than their negotiated rates at the company’s preferred properties.

BTN Webinar: Measuring Hotel ROI

This thirty minute webinar describes how several companies measure the return on investment (ROI) from their corporate hotel program and the challenges faced in communicating the value to upper management. This webinar also introduces a new method for measuring by using TRIPBAM's lowest qualified rates (LQR) found during the daily search process.

TRIPBAM and TrustYou Announce Partnership

TRIPBAM, the hotel rate shopping service innovator, and TrustYou, the world’s largest guest feedback platform, today announced a strategic partnership between the companies. The agreement will allow TRIPBAM to provide summarized review content from TrustYou, via both TrustScore Widgets and Meta-Reviews, to clients and their travelers.

TRIPBAM In, TripRebel Out For European Hotel Shopping Tech

Both Tripbam and TripRebel have targeted the corporate market with software that re-shops booked hotels for better deals. The former is expanding into Europe with a London office and expanded language, content and currency capabilities. The latter recently went insolvent.

The Stay After Tomorrow

MEET THE DISRUPTORS: TRIPBAM

Travel is full of so many new ideas and companies that it’s difficult for travel managers to keep on top of what’s happening in the marketplace. So BTiQ has teamed up with the Business Travel Show for this new series to learn more about some of the innovative companies at this year's exhibition and vying for the Disrupt Award.

Corporate Travel Leaders Hope for Stability and Plan for Growth in 2017

Many executives in the corporate travel space are planning for expansion and growth in the year ahead. The question on everyone’s mind is whether global and economic events will foster more business travel or keep growth subdued.

Hotel Price Assurance: Tales of corporate hotel savings

Abercrombie & Fitchand American Cancer Society shave over $60 per night, on average, on a hotel room when it finds savings through Hotel Price Assurance. The service, provided by BCD Travel and powered by TRIPBAM™, allows the global clothing retailer to tap enhanced automation to shop for lower hotel rates at a traveler’s booked hotel after the original booking has been made.

GBTA Webinar - Improving Hotel Procurement

A presentation and discussion highlighting several new ways to improve hotel procurement by utilizing new technology, hotel rate benchmarks, advanced analytics and more. We'll discuss the challenges with the current processes ...

GBTA Center Stage Presentation

Announcing TRIPBAM Analytics

TRIPBAM™, the new hotel shopping service, introduced TRIPBAM Analytics, a new data service built specifically for corporate travel managers. The real-time reporting gives business travel programs comprehensive data which can help improve daily performance as well as provide metrics to drive better hotel supplier agreements.

GoldSpring & TRIPBAM Partner Up on Sourcing

GoldSpring Consulting and tripBAM will partner on corporate travel client hotel sourcing projects. The companies have, between them, tripBAM's hotel rate-shopping tool, which continuously queries a single hotel or cluster of hotels in a geographic area in order to find the best rate.

The Brewing Conflict Between Hotels and Travel Managers.

Rudy-Maxas-World-with-The-Careys

Rudy Maxa interviews TRIPBAM Founder and CEO, Steve Reynolds. Their discussion covers hotel rate changes and how consumers can take advantage of rate fluctuations to save money on their next hotel stay.

TMC to add new TRIPBAM services

Business Travel Direct is set to introduce a series of new enhancements from hotel shopping tool Tripbam. BTD, which was the first TMC to partner with Tripbam in the UK, said using the platform had helped clients to find savings of up to 36 per cent on hotel prices.

BTN's 2015 25 Most Influential

Vanishing LRA? TripBAM may not uncover why, but can alert travel managers about when they should have gotten their negotiated rate and didn't. Corporates can go back and get that rate or choose to "optimize" repeat offenders out of their programs.

BTN and PhocusWright Honor TRIPBAM

TRIPBAM™, the new hotel shopping service, capped an impressive year of growth with recognition from Business Travel News and Phocuswright. Earlier this week, BTN named TRIPBAM founder and CEO Steve Reynolds among the 25 Most Influential Business Travel Executives of 2015, citing “growing use of TRIPBAM’s automated rate shopping service.” In November, TRIPBAM won the Battleground competition at the prestigious Phocuswright Travel Innovation Summit.

TRIPBAM Wins Phocuswright Battleground Contest

TRIPBAM wins the Phocuswright Battleground event. View this video of the winning presentation. TRIPBAM is currently procesing 100K bookings a day, working with 15 of the 20 top TMCs and more than 1,000 companies.

Teplis Adds TRIPBAM to Help Corporate Clients Save on Hotel Bookings

Teplis Travel has announced it is adopting the latest service to assist travel managers in ensuring their travelers always get the lowest hotel rate in the marketplace. The new service, TRIPBAM™, uses patent-pending "cluster" shopping processes to find savings on more than 60 percent of hotel groups searched, with average savings of more than $50 per night.

Gillespie's Guide: Hotel RFP Hell - Is the End at Hand?

Let’s agree that all our friends and colleagues who are in the midst of yet another grueling hotel RFP season should have our sympathies. Hang in there, friends, for the future is much brighter. I saw a glimpse of it at the Beat Live conference in D.C. last week. But fair warning…you’ll need to grit your teeth and open your minds, as it’s not an easy pill to swallow.

TRIPBAM Signs Long-Term Contract With BCD

“What we're able to do for our customers is give them a service that combines both the TRIPBAM technical functionality as well as our agents’ ability to ensure that we’re actually securing the lower rates that the tool offers and identifies,” Bridgeman said. “That increases the conversion to those lower rates for our clients.”

TRIPBAM Offers Real-Time Negotiated Rate Enforcement

TRIPBAM has deployed an enhancement targeted at corporate hotel programs that ensures travelers are booked at the rate that is contracted for their company. TRIPBAM’s new service addresses a longstanding, issue for travel managers at programs big and small.

Hotel Shopping Tool Proves Handy For Procurement

A typical hotel sourcing season for computer technology company Dell ramps up in May, launches in July and wraps up right around Christmas, after four to six rounds of negotiations. This year, though, Kristina Laurel, global hotel program manager for Dell travel and expense, hopes to shorten that season with the help of tripBAM.

TRIPBAM enables agents to spot commissionable hotel rates

After a platform upgrade, travel agents can now identify commissionable rates using the hotel shopping service TRIPBAM. Prior to the upgrade, the TripBam platform only ferreted out hotel rooms by cost. “It just took some agencies to tell us how important this was to our corporate clients,” TripBam CEO Steve Reynolds told Travel Weekly.

Agents using TRIPBAM price search

The leading travel agency-focused publication in the U.S. writes about TRIPBAM's growing penetration among travel agencies. San Francisco-based SR Travel’s success at saving money for clients with TRIPBAM is featured.

TRIPBAM Wins Business Travel Supplier Innovation Award

Dallas-based TRIPBAM CEO Steve Reynolds (middle) accepts the Business Travel Supplier Innovation Award from Business Travel News executives at the inaugural BTN Group Innovate Conference in New York on September 4, 2014. Judges at the technology-focused event honored tripBAM for its progress in helping corporations and travel agencies use automation to secure lower hotel rates...